What's in a name?

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To all those who responded to my paper

From: Ken St. Louis
Date: 23 Oct 2006
Time: 11:28:23 -0500
Remote Name: 134.29.31.173

Comments

Dear friends, I want to thank all of you who responded to my paper, “What’s in a Name?” I especially want to thank the students who took the time to read and ask questions or post comments. You are the next, new generation of clinicians, and we will be passing the torch to you very soon. As I reflect on the questions asked and my replies, I have a few new insights and one regret. Let me take the regret first. Maybe some of my replies sounded more defensive than they were intended. (We never know for sure how our communications are received.) The majority of the responders concluded from the paper that it would be best to ask the stutterer/person who stutters how he/she would like to be addressed. As is clear from my replies, I don’t take that position and wanted to be clear about what I believe. I found that I kept making the same or similar argument, perhaps with the naïve hope that the next writer would read my previous reply. I know that is not the way this conference works; people respond to the papers, by and large, not to the discussion. In retrospect, I wish I could have gone back to edit the paper to make my position clearer. This is not to say that I expected people to agree with me. I believe the debates have been healthy. Now to what I have learned… I learned what every good trial lawyer already knows apparently. A few good stories convince more than a ton of hard data. Based on their indoctrination (by professors), many students and some clinician colleagues read my research and were “surprised” or “shocked” by the findings. I assume the surprise was not so great at hearing from stutterers who preferred direct label terminology. And I also assume that the individuals who indicated that they preferred person-first terminology led the majority of the responders to assume that we cannot make a decision solely from the data, i.e., we must take into account individual preferences. I have known for a long time that reason is not particularly useful in persuading someone to change a position that was not arrived at through reason. But I assumed that students would not have make up their minds as surely as many apparently have. The good part of this is that we professors have a great deal of power. The bad part of this is that we professors have a great deal of power. I confess that I expected more debate, as Michael challenged me. And I wish more stutterers would have replied, especially those who disagree with my position. I do believe that we must debate these issues and not accept PC edicts (as from the ASHA Publication Board) at face value. Only in this way will positions be brought to light that should be changed. Thanks again to everyone for the opportunity to put my thoughts “out there.” Ken


Last changed: 10/25/06